Officials say no one was in the driver’s seat when a Tesla crashed into a tree in Woodlands, Texas late Saturday, bursting into flames and killing both male occupants. According to authorities, the men’s wives told investigators that the two minutes before the crash had talked about using the vehicle’s autopilot function before driving. Physical evidence indicated that one man was in the passenger seat and the other in the back seat, officials said, although neither could be identified with certainty due to the duration of the fire. “It took four hours to put out a fire that would normally have lasted a few minutes,” said Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman. Regulators have raised concerns about the types of batteries used in Teslas, warning that they could make vehicle fires more difficult to put out. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is investigating nearly two dozen accidents involving Teslas who may be using Autopilot.
Read it up The New York Times